Did Bush manipulate Iraq data?

[kandrathe]

Uh, huh. Do you think that was the US motivation for actions in Bosnia, Somalia, Panama, Korea, Haiti, Libya, Afghanistan, and Columbia? Did you see "Blackhawk Down"?

I am more disturbed by the ones we are/have neglected, like Khmer Rouge

Almost 1.7 million Cambodians were killed, including members of minority and religious groups, people suspected of disagreeing with the party, intellectuals, merchants, and bureaucrats. Millions of other Cambodians were forcibly relocated, deprived of food, tortured, or sent into forced labor. Of about 425,000 Chinese Cambodians, only about half survived the Khmer Rouge regime. While most of about 450,000 Vietnamese Cambodians had been expelled by the Lon Nol regime, more were driven out by the Khmer Rouge; the rest were tracked down and murdered. Of about 250,000 Muslim Chams (an ethnic group inhabiting the rural areas of Cambodia) in 1975, 90,000 were massacred, and the survivors were dispersed. The most horrific slaughter took place during the second half of 1978 when at least 250,000 people were killed in the worst single massacre of the Khmer Rouge period.

or Rwanda,

Week 5, On May 16, HRW criticized the U.S. government for "effectively blocking" a UN vote that would send peacekeeping troops to Rwanda and pointed out that U.S. inaction at the UN was "allowing the slaughter in Rwanda to continue." The organization emphasized that "the slaughter of 200,000 unarmed and unresisting civilians is...far more than a Rwandan problem. Given this extraordinary violation of the international laws...this catastrophe confronts the United States...with a moral imperative..."

U.S. Policy Response During the fifth week of the genocide, a secret report by the Defense Intelligence Agency stated that "there is an organized...effort of genocide being implemented." During the sixth week of the genocide, the U.S. government and the UN Security Council formally agreed that new peacekeeping troops might be needed in Rwanda.

But U.S. officials effectively blocked implementation by insisting on more weeks of study before allowing final approval. The UN resolution pointedly refused to characterize the killings as "genocide."

... and the genocide continued for another 11 weeks before HRW reported...

Yet that is exactly what President Clinton now claims. President Clinton told Rwandans during his visit there in March that he personally "did not fully appreciate the depth and the speed with which [Rwandans] were engulfed by this unimaginable terror." Mr. Chairman, this is an extraordinary statement.

If we take the President at his word, then we are left to believe that our massive U.S. government‹with all its intelligence gathering, analytic capacity, diplomatic contacts, and massive resources‹suffered a monumental failure by neglecting to inform adequately its own leader about the clearest genocide the human race has seen in nearly 50 years. Mr. Chairman, a governmental communications breakdown of that magnitude is worthy of close examination by Congress, the State Department, the National Security Council, the Pentagon, and other pertinent arms of the U.S. government.

An alternative explanation is that weak U.S. policies and the glaring lack of strong moral leadership during the Rwandan genocide stemmed not from a lack of knowledge, but from a lack of interest and political will.

or Sudan,

Approximately 4.4 million Sudanese were uprooted at the end of 2001, including an estimated 4 million internally displaced persons and some 440,000 Sudanese living as refugees and asylum seekers.
Sudanese refugees primarily lived in eight countries, including about 150,000 in Uganda, some 80,000 in Ethiopia, 70,000 in Kenya, 70,000 in Congo-Kinshasa, about 35,000 in Central African Republic, 18,000 in Egypt, 15,000 in Chad, and 1,000 in Eritrea. In addition, more than 3,000 filed new asylum applications in Western countries during the year...

And, I have cited here sources before outlining over 2.2 million murders and deaths due to displacement in Sudan.

or DR of Congo

Despite three peace agreements aimed at ending the five year-old Congolese war, fighting in eastern DRC, particularly in Ituri and South Kivu, intensified in late 2002 and early 2003. The current violence in Bunia is only the latest episode in this war that has left an estimated 3.3 million civilians dead throughout the Congo, a toll that makes it more deadly to civilians than any other since World War II.

And, still there are over 9 million refugees displaced and at risk in Central Africa alone. Then add Eritrea, Zimbabwe, etc, etc, etc...

I'm getting a bit tired of the "No War for Oil" drum. If that were an issue, why are we not poking our noses into Canada, Nigeria, or Venezuela?

The United States imports 9.9 percent of all the oil it consumes from Canada, more than from any other nation. It imports 7.9 percent from Saudi Arabia and 7.8 percent from Mexico. It imports 2.2 percent from Iraq. All Persian Gulf nations together supply only 11.5 percent of the oil the United States consumes.

American Petroleum Institute

The reality IMO is that our hammer is not always the right tool to solve these problems. Somalia is a classic example of just how wrong things can be when you try to use the wrong tool, or just not understand the problem. And, as for Anti-US... Who isn't? Just ask the French.